About 500 Palestinians feared dead in air strike on Gaza hospital as Israel denies strike

GAZA STRIP, Palestine 

An Israeli air strike on Tuesday is claimed to have killed about 500 Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people, health authorities in the besieged enclave said.

The strike was the bloodiest single incident in Gaza since Israel launched an unrelenting bombing campaign against the densely populated territory in retaliation for a deadly cross-border Hamas assault on southern Israeli communities on October 7.

It took place on the eve of a visit by US President Joe Biden to Israel to show support for the country in its war with Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

Arab countries, Iran and Turkiye swiftly condemned the attack. 

The Palestinian prime minister called it “a horrific crime, genocide” and said countries backing Israel also bore responsibility.

Sources at the Gaza Ministry of Health told Reporters that around 500 Palestinians were killed in the air strike on Al-Ahli Al-Arabi hospital.

Hamas said the bombing mostly killed people left homeless by Israel bombardments, and that the dead included patients, women and children.

“There are scores of dismembered and crushed bodies, baths of blood,” said Izzat El-Reshiq, a senior Hamas member.

Video obtained by our reporter  showed several full ambulances arriving at another Gaza hospital carrying people injured at Al-Ahli Al-Arabi hospital. One man was staggering, bleeding heavily from the head. A boy was being carried on a stretcher.

The Israeli military said it did not have any details about the reported bombing, but was checking. It has previously accused Hamas of using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Mark Regev, the senior adviser to the Israeli Prime Minister, who has told our reporter it is the belief of the Israeli authorities that a Hamas rocket was to blame for the blast at the Al Ahli hospital.

"We know that at the time of this tragedy in Gaza, there was a huge barrage against targets in central Israel. We had the siren here in Tel Aviv, and I went to a bomb shelter," he said.

"We know they fired rockets at that same time. Hamas put out a statement that they were sending a long-range rocket on Haifa [northern Israel] at this time."

"Now no rocket actually reached Haifa. Where did that rocket go? Where did it land?"